Tim Mathis's Blog, page 8

The Camino de Finisterre in a day: An ultra running love story.

Santiago: The starting line for the Camino de Finisterre

When my wife Angel and I decided to run the 500 mile Camino de Santiago across Spain, we had no goal but to enjoy ourselves and to move at a leisurely pace mixing in running and walking as our bodies and whims dictated.

Throughout the route, though, we knew that when we made it to Santiago, we planned to take a quick rest and then attempt to run the 55 mile Camino de Finisterre in a day. This final section of trail completing the traverse from the eastern border with France to the Atlantic Ocean would be a nice capstone on our Camino experience, and a chance to really suffer and test ourselves after having covered 500 miles on foot in the previous 4 weeks.

This section isn't officially a part of the traditional Camino Frances (the most popular Camino route), but it's common practice to walk it as a wind down after arriving in Santiago, across 3 - 5 days. It's a relatively relaxed portion of trail, with a lot of beautiful scenery, old coastal towns, and plenty of stops along the way. For us it would be a ridiculous, celebratory endurance challenge.

Throughout the vast majority of the Camino, things went remarkably well, and our plan looked doable (if not really reasonable by normal standards of reasonable-ness). We had no injury issues, no real sense of feeling overtrained or miserable, and were generally loving our experience. By the last 150 miles, we were running three days ahead of schedule, and had settled in to a routine of 20 - 25 mile days, feeling completely comfortable.

I don't know if I got overzealous on a fast downhill on a particularly hilly section, but two days out from our planned arrival in Santiago, I developed a strain in my right quadricep muscle at the attachment of the interior of the knee. I tried to run through it, then walk, but the pain kept increasing. By the time we reached a town called Melide, 30 miles from Santiago, I was fueling my run on cursing and temper tantrums. Angel accused me of being a drama queen, but what she didn't understand was that with this minor muscular injury, all of my life dreams had been destroyed.

Angel, reasonably enough, talked me into stopping there:

"But I don't want to! I want to keep walking and finish out tomorrow!"

"That's stupid. We're three days ahead of schedule and there's no reason to hurt yourself."

After some RICE'ing, a rest in a decent hotel, and a massive dinner of boiled pulpo (octopus), the next day I still couldn't run without pain, but it also generally didn't hurt to walk. So, we moved on for our first complete day of walking on the whole Camino. It felt like defeat in a way, but we finished the day after about 18 miles of hiking. The next day, headed into Santiago, there was some improvement, and I was only feeling pain on downhills. We ran three flat miles, but primarily walked the final section. We were hiking in to Santiago with friends, so there was no reason to hurry anyway. We arrived at the Cathedral in Santiago in the morning, and spent that evening and the next day drinking and resting, with the tentative hope that our Camino de Finisterre one day fun run would still be possible.

The Camino de Finisterre

By the morning of our planned departure, my leg had been pain free for an entire day, and it seemed like it was going to work as long as I approached the run cautiously. I was planning to run flats and walk uphills and steep downhills (which had been the worst stressor on the quad). There wasn't a terrible amount of elevation change (about 4500 ft up and down across 55 miles), so I figured that if I could run half of the day, we'd finish easily within 12 - 13 hours, even with some breaks at restaurants. We started at 5:30 am from our hostel next to the cathedral in Santiago, optimistic, and for the first part of the day, we had no problems. It was dark, and we were moving at a slow pace, but by 8 am we'd covered a half-marathon, and arrived in Negreira, the first town with an open cafe to grab some breakfast.

I had a chocolate croissant and some coffee, and in a fateful moment went to the toilet to do some important business. When I stood up, I felt the quad pull again. My stomach dropped, I cursed, and I cycled rapidly through the stages of grief, settling on denial before exiting the stall. We paid our bill, and by the time we hit the trail, I was limping and couldn't bend my leg without pain. After a couple minutes of walking I broke the news to Angel. I told her that I'd aggravated my injury, and thought that I'd be hiking the rest of the way. I was struggling with any movement, but I lied that it only hurt when I was running, because I wanted to see if it would work itself out.

We'd discussed our game plan in Santiago, and we had initially agreed that if I couldn't run, Angel would go on ahead and I could either move at my own pace or take a night in an albergue to let things heal. She wanted to enjoy herself and use the day as the key long training run for our upcoming race at the Cascade Crest 100. A 40 mile hike with a whining baby wasn't part of that vision. When I told her I couldn't continue running, she said she would stay with me for a few hours to see how things went, and we hiked for 5 miles, mostly in silence.

I knew that I was holding her back, and that she was feeling a need to run, and at one point after an hour and a half or so, she turned to me, and kissed me, and I asked "So, what's the plan?"

She started to cry, and so did I. When we'd started the Camino a month earlier, we had fully expected to split up at times so that we wouldn't drive each other crazy. We'd never spent so much time together at any point in our 11 year marriage, and we expected that it wouldn't be a good idea to try to do so under stressful physical conditions. I don't know if it was the daily dose of runners high, or the magic of the Camino, but we hadn't separated between St. Jean, the start of our Camino in France, and Santiago. And so, we hiked on together another mile, crying.

"I don't want to finish without you," we both agreed.

Once we'd composed ourselves I told her that I thought I would be able to finish that day, walking. I told her that if she wanted to carry on running, I'd keep moving as quickly as I could, and either stop at a hostel if I needed to, or meet her at the room we'd booked in Finisterre that night.

She said that if I really thought that I would make it, she'd stay with me.

And with that, the idea of walking 35 more miles that day became irrationally important to me.

I had dealt with strains before, and I knew that continued movement isn't a great recipe for healing, but I had also been around ultra runners long enough to know that, sometimes, when you keep moving, things turn around. I decided to keep going forward as quickly as I could without sharp pain, and see what happened. My walking pace is generally pretty fast, and after a few hours I realized that we were moving around 3.5 miles/hour, which would still get us to Finisterre before sundown. More importantly, it would get us there before 10 pm when the front desk closed at the hostel where we had a reservation.

The pain was manageable, so for a big portion of the day our spirits were high. We'd turned a minor injury that had threatened to screw up the biggest day of our trip into a shared struggle, and a significant moment in both our running lives and our relationship. Angel took on a pacing role, and I tried to stay positive and remind her of how much it meant to me that she'd decided to stay with me, despite the fact that I was turning a nice run into a long, grueling hike.

The weather in Northern Spain during the summer usually involves cool mornings that gradually heat up throughout the day, with the worst of the heat coming between 2 - 6 pm when things start to cool down again. True to form, throughout the morning the weather was pleasant, and we were able to complete a marathon before noon.

We were fit for ultras - the fittest we'd ever been in our lives. "We only have a 50k left. We can do a 50k any day of the week."

By 2 o'clock though, we were setting out on the longest section of the trail without accessible water - 8 miles through a beautiful but shade-free canyon. Temperatures were hovering near 90 degrees, and we were exposed to open sun for hours during the hottest part of the day. I don't know if it was the cumulative fatigue of walking with an altered gait, the heat and sun exposure, or a failure of my nutrition plan, but I really started to struggle. I was stumbling along, contemplating death from heat exhaustion, and making my peace with giving up. By the time we reached an albergue at the exit of the canyon, my feet were swollen and blistering, I was lightheaded, I had a weird rash on my legs, and I had decided that I couldn't safely continue.

Angel was still feeling strong and was anxious to keep moving. I considered the situation. It was 8 more miles to the next albergue, but the worst part of the heat had passed. The afternoon was shifting into evening, the sun was getting lower in the sky, and I had been able to lower my core temperature dumping buckets of water on my head. I drank a Coke and two cans of Aquarius sports drink (a sort of Spanish Gatorade), and I started to think that I might be able to move on. I didn't want to let Angel down at this point. I felt wrecked, and I was exhausted, but my injury hadn't gotten worse. I didn't seem to be experiencing any real worrying signs of heat stroke, and I began to reconsider the possibility of continuing.

The decisive moment occurred when an older American pilgrim, conspicuous in khaki, a sunhat and recently smeared sunblock approached us. Clearly not reading my "Holy Hell I'm miserable and I think I might die in the desert today" social cues, he started attempting to strike up small talk in a thick Texan accent: "Hey! What part of Brooklyn are you from?! My kids live in Brooklyn! What do you guys do?! I'm a theology professor! How's the walk going?! Okay, well, I'll probably see you ahead if you can keep up with me and we can talk more! I'm really moving fast today!"

We were not in the mood for friendliness at that point, and we took his threat of rapid movement seriously. We left the albergue as quickly as we could to stay ahead of him. It felt like we we were starting to pick up our pace after a long period of lagging through the canyon, and we crested a hill and moved along a busy highway for a mile as the air began to feel slightly cooler - comfortable almost in the clothes I'd soaked prior to leaving the albergue.

The theology professor wasn't lying - he was a fast walker - and on the flat we could see that he was just a few hundred hundred yards behind us on the trail. There was one more available restaurant stop before we set out on another high, hot, exposed section with no water sources, but we decided to push ahead so he wouldn't catch us. He screamed something at us that we couldn't quite make out while he was near the restaurant: "Hey Seattle!! Hmmphmph hmohphre right way stock up?!! I want to hike with you!!"

It was a risk to skip the shop and the opportunity for another cold drink, but I swear that I could hear the theme song from Halloween playing in the distance as we waved the theology professor off and started pushing through an uphill. At the top, I realized that for the first time in 27 miles I wasn't having pain in my quad on the flats, and I started to jog again. "Dammit! I'm running!" I didn't make it far - maybe a kilometer before I started to bonk and my injury flared up - but it was far enough that we'd distanced ourselves from any threat of having to be pleasant with talkative theology professors. More importantly, I started to feel confident that I was actually going to finish.

During this final exposed stretch in the sun, I again ran out of water, and again started to feel miserable, but my blister care had worked passably on my feet and by then we were within striking distance of the sea. We got our first glance, in fact, at about 4:30 pm - 11 hours after we left Santiago.

From there, I felt like this the rest of the way:

But we hiked on. We reached the first town on the Atlantic coast - called appropriately enough, Cee - by 5:30. We stopped for food and a drink, and to celebrate the fact that we had now traveled from border to border in Spain on foot, before pushing on. The 8 remaining miles to Finisterre were grueling, but we passed beside a beautiful cove and trudged along a highway before finally reaching our hostel at 9 pm, an hour before checkin closed and 15 1/2 hours after we'd started. After hobbling to an American diner for burgers, we collapsed into bed.

The Camino de Santiago is a lot of things to a lot of people. For Angel and I, the first 500 miles were pure fun, and one of the most enjoyable travel experiences of our lives. The 55 miles on the Camino de Finisterre, though, were pure agony. But it was also a section of trail that will represent something really important in our relationship, as a place where Angel drug me through a challenge that I didn't think I could complete, and where we both committed to suffer so we could share a significant experience together rather than apart. It left me feeling like (reasonably or not), together, we could do whatever we want to in life. It's a day that I think back o when I question my ability to get through difficult situations, and when I start to notice that I'm taking Angel's place in my life for granted. It was suffering, it's true, but it was also real pilgrimage.

If you ended up here because of outdoor adventure, check out my book The Dirtbag's Guide to Life . If you ended up here because of religious pilgrimage, check out I Hope I Was Wrong About Eternal Damnation .

Staying Sane and Moving Forward While it Feels Like the World is Crashing Around You: Lessons from Death and the PCT

I’ve been thinking about 2015 a lot since the coronavirus hit. Most recently because it’s the year Angel and I hiked the Pacific Crest Trail, and this week I’ve been reading Carrot Quinn’s excellent PCT book Thru-hiking Will Break Your Heart .

Less pleasantly, and more so, though, because 2015 was the last time I felt the type of existential dread we’ve all been waking up with since waves of hospitalizations and deaths started hitting all over the world, threatening lives and livelihoods for years to come. It’s the same feeling that was triggered for me a month before Angel and I were set to start the PCT, when my dad was diagnosed suddenly and unexpectedly with glioblastoma, a terminal form of brain cancer. 

I made the connection early on between the events, because I instantly recognized the feeling I’ve been feeling. The uncertainty and sense of impending doom, and the sense that the future is out of my control. Similarly, the sense that I’ll likely be fine through this personally, but that people I care about deeply will not. The sense that really, I want to hope for a positive outcome, but that actually isn’t realistic. Too much is already in motion that’s determined that my dread is well-founded. Bad shit will happen, and life will never be the same again. The sense of being blindsided by mother nature. The sense that there’s no real way I could have prepared for this emotionally. And the sense that I actually have no idea how any of this will shake out, or what will come afterwards.

I'm guessing that's familiar to a lot of you.

In 2015, it was a real, but small scale, crisis, of the type that happens to thousands of people every day, and really impacted primarily my family and our friends, This time around the whole world has been catapulted into this situation. All of us are threatened in some way or another - from losing our life to losing friends to losing jobs to losing our way of life. None of us are coming out of this the same as we entered. Some of us will literally die. Others will survive but be changed in ways that we can’t really predict or control. None of us know how long this will last or how it will all shake out. Existential dread is the name of our collective diary entry about 2020. 

While I made the connection between the events early on, the way certain smells trigger certain memories involuntarily, for some reason it just hit that maybe the things I learned during my dad’s illness and death might be valuable now. For myself, and for everyone who’s going through this. So like, everyone. The experience didn’t provide answers, but it did teach me that there are strategies to get through.

So what do you do? 

The rest of my story is that 2015 was also a year that my life changed in positive ways. What were the positives? I came to a stronger sense of what I value, and what direction I want to point my life. I developed a stronger sense of connection to my community of people (even if Angel and I have been largely drifting around ever since). It was the year I made the decision to get serious about lifelong goals to write some books, to travel more. I also decided to stick with some things I was already doing - to keep nursing, and keep something in my life that feels like a directly positive impact on others, to keep immersing myself in the outdoors as a way to experience the fundamentals of human existence. I don’t look back on 2015 as a positive year. I wouldn’t repeat it by choice and I don’t really know that I’d say the costs were worth the benefits. But I do look back on it as formative in positive ways, and full of experiences that I draw on constantly.

I’m pretty confident lots of us will look back on 2020 in this way. But it helps to have a strategy to be sure that's the case. I don't have all the answers, but I did learn some things. So… 

What do you need to do to stay sane and move forward while it seems the world is crashing down around you?

Based on my experience, the first step to getting through an extended period of dread and uncertainty is admitting that you have a problem - you have to radically accept the negative aspects of the situation that are out of your control. There's nothing wrong with hoping for the best, unless there is no realistic chance of "the best" happening. This hurts at first, then it releases some of the anxiety of uncertainty.

In 2015, very shortly after he was initially diagnosed following a seizure, we knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that my Dad was dying. His cancer was going to take him no matter what we did. He was rushed into surgery, and after a biopsy of his tumor, the first thing his surgeon told us was that his cancer was a glioblastoma and “not generally survivable”, and average prognosis was about a year. While they initially put a rosy spin on what his recovery would look like from the surgery, we also realized that in many ways brain surgery had taken my dad's personality. A thumb sized chunk of his brain was gone, and along with it many aspects of what made him who he was. He was there, but not there, and we didn't know how long he'd survive. That was the reality. 

While there is plenty of over-optimism spreading nowadays, our Covid-19 reality is that disease is here, with millions of confirmed cases, spreading everywhere around the world, and there’s no quick or easy fix. Even in the few places that seem to have some measure of control, their economy will be massively impacted by this for years, and the average person's ability to function as they had been has been interrupted for at least as long. A vaccine is not coming tomorrow. There's currently no treatment. All of our lives are, and will continue to be, different. Maybe we’ll get the disease, maybe not. The prognosis at an individual level is of course much better than glioblastoma, but at a population level this is a crippling illness. We all live in communities, and no community is getting out unaffected - we’re not going back to normal. We should be thinking about the impacts of this in terms of years, not weeks or months. Take a deep breath - it’s scary, but if you believe the experts and the experience around the world, this is what's happening.

In the same vein though, it’s important not to catastrophize. Don’t even catastrophize death. For some reason in the midst of crisis it's reassuring to remember that the worst case scenario is death, and that's happening anyway - some day we’re all going to die. So the worst case scenario is that something that is inevitable will happen sooner rather than later. When you accept that, you can recognize that your response to the current situation has analogies to every situation. What do you do? You take the situation you’re given and you try to make the best decisions you can. Is this hope? I’m not sure - but it’s a commitment to being the person you think you should be, doing the best you can, and contributing something good to the world in an unfamiliar context. It's also, I should note, a commitment to making it through this. That may just mean living the best life you can with what time you’re given, but for most of us it means steeling yourself to push through a hard time that you'll eventually emerge from a different, and maybe even better, person. 

For dad personally, doing the best he could with the time he had is what it meant. And in that time, after surgery, he pulled off a cross-country move to Las Vegas to spend the last months with his grandkids (which was a move he and mom had been talking about for years). That was a hard process - transferring healthcare providers across the country was a huge additional pain to coordinate, and he didn't need the extra exhaustion. But he was exhausted anyway, and no intervention was going to get rid of his cancer so who cares? It meant leaving behind his home of more than 60 years and the rest of his family, but that was going to happen anyway soon, so it wasn’t something he could change. We knew in his situation that lots of bad things would happen, but we also wanted to make sure that some good things happened.  

Our reality now is maybe less dire, but there are analogies. Things suck, and more bad things are definitely coming. But keep perspective -  like death, disease is a thing that happens in nature, and always has. Pandemics (and, ahem... terrible government management of them) are as normal as wildfires and tides and childbirth. We’re not unique in our situation - we just aren’t used to it. We need to make the best decisions we can with the information we’re given. Most actually will make it through. Some bad things will happen. But we can also make sure some good things happen if we don’t get defeatist, and don’t catastrophize. 

Okay, but how do you decide what to actually do? 

It’s okay to recognize that you may be trying to choose the best of several bad options. It’s normal to feel paralyzed or defeated in those situations. But it’s important to keep moving towards your values and goals the best way you can figure out. Because change and life will come, whether or not you decide to have your say in the situation. You'll feel much better about it if you decide to have your say.

Angel and I knew my dad had terminal cancer. And we knew that we wanted to spend as much quality time with him as we could with the time we had left. We also had a massive life goal we’d been preparing for a year which we'd already quit jobs to pursue, and post-surgery, after we had him settled in Vegas, my dad insisted we go. Angel and I had to make a decision, and we hedged our bets. He'd had surgery that was ‘mostly’ successful. Doctors said he’d likely have a good amount of time - a year, two possibly. Maybe even 5 if his cancer wasn't fast growing. We decided to go on with the PCT, monitor the situation, and integrate Dad and Mom into the experience as best we could. The last road trip I ever took with my Dad, they drove from Vegas to the Southern Terminus in California and dropped us off, taking the first steps North with us. It's the last really positive memory I have with my Dad. Our plan was to see them along the way at Big Bear and maybe a couple of other points, and then to move to Las Vegas afterwards to spend however long the rest of my Dad’s life would be with them.

In the Covid-19 crisis, we know that there’s a pandemic still spreading and taking lives. That’s not negotiable. There’s plenty of uncertainty, but we do know that jobs, family, travel, life choices, and finances have been dramatically impacted for most of us and will be for years. The only thing to do is to take the options you have and make the best decisions you can. Recognize that just because some options have been taken off the table, it doesn’t mean there are no options. There are always options until you’re dead, and you have to choose the best ones you can. Now, that might mean using the destabilization of a pandemic to fight for a better world. It might mean figuring out how you can contribute to your friends and neighbors. It might mean working to make sure your business or government retools for the new situation. It might just mean supporting your friends and family as we weather this long winter together. You have the options that you have, if you choose consciously which ones to take, you'll feel better about it. 

Having said that...

Remember that in the midst of this uncertainty, you’re going to make some bad decisions. The lights just went out, and we’re all flailing in the dark to some degree. There’s no way to get everything right in such an uncertain context. Give yourself some grace for this, recognize that no choice is perfect and all choices involve costs and benefits. Some days you may be too exhausted to make any choices. That’s fine too. Take a day off.

While we planned to spend the months after our PCT trip with my dad, after they came to visit in Big Bear (only a few hundred miles into the PCT) I never saw him walk under his own strength again. He collapsed the day we hit the midway point on the trail. His cancer was back, the tumor larger than it had been at his initial diagnosis, and with glioblastoma this means there are no further meaningful interventions that can be done. In the span of 10 minutes after getting the message, we abruptly made the decision to quit the trail. We worked our way to Vegas and arranged an apartment, expecting to spend the last months of his life with him. But his health fell off a cliff. He was never really back cognitively, he declined rapidly and passed away within two weeks - about 4 months after his initial diagnosis, and well less than the average prognosis. In retrospect I’m not sure that I feel we made the right initial choice to start the PCT, because we spent the only semblance of healthy existence he experienced in the couple of months after his surgery wandering in the literal desert. But we made the best choice we could with the data we had, which is all we could have done. 

The world is going to be in flux. Trust the data, trust the experts, look at your skills and options and goals and do what seems best. Because… 

When you make a bad decision, it just means that you have given yourself a new set of options. After Dad died we debated staying in Vegas, working, hanging out with my mom and generally grieving. We were on the edge of buying a car and taking jobs to this end. (Angel already had accepted an offer.) But we had an honest conversation with ourselves, and with my mom, and we changed our minds. We decided to go back and finish the trail. Because of the hiatus, that meant taking on a challenge that a few months ago would’ve seemed impossible - hiking 25 miles a day until the snow flew in October, aiming to beat the weather and finish the trail. Mom drove us back to the trail and took the second set of first steps with us North again. She also made a decision, trained for months, borrowed gear, got advice from some supportive friends, and met us at the end on the trail on her first overnight backpacking trip. It would be the first of several more trips we’d take together the next few years, and it seemed from an outside perspective to give her a sense of purpose and independence - pursing a dream my dad never would have taken on himself. In this case we all made the right decision, I think. We were guided by the same values and relationships as when we'd decided to leave initially. We took a different risk, but this time it panned out. We finished the trail, and with my mom spread some of my dad’s ashes at the Northern Terminus . We were emotionally exhausted but there was no more meaningful way to experience some degree of closure on my dad’s life, with my mom. All that physical and emotional suffering culminated with a moment where we could say we were done. (Not done, of course). That wouldn’t have been an option if we hadn’t taken the first steps earlier when we found out the bad news.

In a situation that’s in flux, options will be continually opening and closing. Keep moving along the path. 

Even if you commit to making decisions and moving forward, maybe the hardest bit can be the uncertainty. The emotional weight of it all. The bad news hits, then you just sit with it and wait for doom to come without really knowing what that doom entails. When you’ve radically accepted a hard reality, it’s normal to wake up every day with a vague sense of sadness and dread. That’s what happened for me in 2015, and that’s what’s happening for me now. Some of you I'd guess are experiencing the same. 

What helps? How do you manage those emotions? 

When my dad got sick, I was lucky to be thru-hiking because exercise actually impacts your feelings. The type of anxiety that you feel in the midst of crisis, I think, is there to get you doing something. And if you don’t do anything, the feelings don’t improve. If you do, they do. Running a lot would’ve been better because it produces positive emotions. Hiking was therapeutic because it exhausts you and dulls your emotions. And being on trail I didn’t have that much choice over whether to keep going. A good diet also helps, though less immediately. Thru-hiking encourages the opposite of that.  But at home, you should really get some exercise and eat as best you can.

It was also helpful to be on trail in the face of the uncertainty of what came after my dad’s death because thru-hiking is an exercise in figuring out the minimum that it takes to be happy. Just the stuff on your back, relationships, food and shelter. Thru hiking teaches you that you can not just survive, but be happy with this. As with accepting death, there's something therapeutic about this. Even if most of what you have is taken away, it's still possible to live a meaningful life you enjoy. 

When thinking particularly about the economic fallouts of this, this is reassuring. If you’re reading this, it’s likely that you actually have significantly more material wealth than you need to be happy. If you’ve ever had to be happy with almost no material possessions, you know you can handle this. You may not have had to before, but it’s worth knowing that this is true. Much is uncertain. It’s unlikely that you won’t have what you need to survive and figure out ways to live a fulfilling life. Go with that. Even if the worst happens, you can find ways to have a meaningful life.

Thru-hiking is also an exercise in the experience of the world as a beautiful place. I really do think humans are made to be outside. When you’re fully immersed in it, you just don’t feel the same way you do when you’re inside, out of the elements. It sucks to get rained on for days at a time, but otherwise I’m not sure there could’ve been a better way to put things in perspective and remember that we’re all part of something bigger than to live outside in the western United States for 5 months.

Similarly, you really do need to get outside in the midst of this. Seriously, watch the birds, who don’t give an eff about coronavirus, or jump in a lake, or just let yourself get rained on for a bit. It’ll release a lot of that malaise you’re living under naturally. The truth is, this is all just one small part of the grand evolutionary history of the universe. Go experience that for a minute or two. It's safe, and it helps.

Another thing we learned is that in this type of crisis, relationships get you through. This means several things.

When something like this happens, it makes you realize (if you didn’t already) that for the most part, if you’re an average human being, your life ultimately centers on relationships with people you care about. For me that meant things drilled down rapidly to relationships with family - helping my dad live out his life as best he could. Helping my mom get through this. Figuring out how myself and siblings could make these things happen. Figuring out how to continue to be a husband when I felt like I couldn’t manage any more emotional energy.

We’re not all in the same boat, but we are in the same ocean. It’s a good analogy. In my family, obviously my dad got hit way harder by the waves of brain cancer than the rest of us. But we were all impacted, and we went through it together. We go through things together. 

One of the biggest anxieties with uncertainty is that you'll be left on your own to cope with a situation you can't manage. But in this particular crisis that's unlikely. While the challenge is not the same for everyone, it is impacting all of us and we’re all going to figure it out together (whether we like it or not). That’s a positive thing. It’s reassuring somehow, we’re all confronted by change and uncertainty. We all have to sort it out together. We’re all going to have to rely on each other. Play your part, but also recognize that others will also be playing theirs and you’re not in this alone.

Because people help. Maybe in ways you never expected. When my Dad got sick and died, friends reached out who had gone through similar experiences, and established the connections we needed - even if we didn’t know we needed them. Angel was a major crutch I needed. She let me be a mess, even though she loved my Dad and was a mess too. Siblings could commiserate in that they were having a similar experience. I was very happy to have someone to occasionally grab a drink and decompress with who was as emotionally exhausted as I was and experiencing the loss in a very similar way - they’d lost the same relationship I had. Back on trail people joined in the effort and kept us going - physically and emotionally. We have friends who were so supportive, and rallied around not just us, but also jumped in to make sure my mom got something out of this too - to make sure she didn’t lose hope, had something to work towards, had what she needed emotionally and financially. It felt both possible and meaningful to keep moving forward because it wasn’t just us trying to make it through.

In Covid, whether we’re voicing it or not, we’re all experiencing this crisis and struggling. We’ll help each other through. It's impossible to predict what that will look like. Some will be more helpful than others, but we're all swimming in the same ocean.

Even having said all of that, to conclude on a point of realism, it’s important to recognize that even with all of your coping skills perfectly executed, in the midst of crisis most times you won’t feel good, but that doesn’t mean the plan isn’t working and you should stop moving. 

After we got back on the PCT, for two months of hiking I felt numb, angry, depressed, sad, and physically and emotionally exhausted. There was plenty that happened that was meaningful, but I wouldn’t say that I have many memories that I would describe as positive. I’d cry regularly, curse more regularly, and push forward in an emotionless void most of the rest of the time. That lasted for months. But it was a process that transformed me. Completing the trail was getting closure on the whole experience. It gave me time to think about what’s important and what I’d be afterwards. I didn’t even exactly realize it was happening, but it was. Afterwards there were just some things I knew I wouldn’t go back to. I was totally ruined for the rat race and centering career goals. I felt unmoored by the loss of my father, but somehow also freed by the experience of the PCT. I had a better sense of who I wanted to be in life (if not necessarily how I wanted to get there), and I felt like a real adult for the first time. I can't point to a time when any major changes happened - I just went in one person, and came out a different one.

We’re all still in the midst of the hard part, but I think that lesson will be directly applicable here. When you push through, experiences that you wouldn’t choose can have consequences that you will appreciate and draw on later. You'll come out of this a different person, and we'll come out of this a different society. If we're intentional about sticking to values through this, in many ways we will be glad about the changes that happen, even if we aren't glad about the process. That's not a reassurance that everything will be okay, but it is an important final point - humans - including yourself and the people you love - are resilient. 

I would guess that 2020 is a worse year for most people than 2015 was, but for me it feels similar. And the things I learned in 2015, I think, are things that I hope will help you get through 2020. The world feels like it’s crashing down around us. Don’t catastrophize. It isn’t. But actually yeah, in a lot of ways maybe it is. But it is what it is, and you can’t control that. Keep to your values and pursue your goals, focus on maintaining supportive and healthy relationships, do what you can to make yourself feel better and manage your emotions healthily, and keep moving even if it doesn’t work. It won’t make the situation go away, but it will get you through. Eventually we’ll all change because of this, and some of those changes will be for the better. Stay sane and keep moving even if the world is crashing around us.

If you found this helpful, you’ll also probably find this article on coping skills for managing during lockdown helpful as well: https://www.boldlywentadventures.com/bloglywent/mental-health-outdoors-covid-19

You’ll also probably like the book I wrote, The Dirtbag’s Guide to Life, which is pretty much just more stuff I learned on the PCT that is applicable to life more generally.

The Dirtbag’s Guide to Outdoor Educational Activities with Children During COVID19 Quarantine & Isolation: Part 5 Resources

This is part five of this 5-part series, "The Dirtbag’s Guide to Outdoor Educational Activities with Children During COVID19 Quarantine & Isolation" co-authored by award-winning, expert teacher, Jessica Levine.

Read Part 1: Series Intro
Read Part 2: Bloom Where You are Planted here. 
Read Part 3: Explore More
Read Part 4: Further Afield

As a brief recap, there are 3 ways we're recommending to go adventuring during this quarantine: 
​Bloom Where You're Planted: Start at your feet, in a 1 meter square of space. These activities require very little movement, but lots of focused observations. Explore More: These activities are designed for more movement, and may have you going about your yard and neighborhood. This is what we're focusing on in today's post!Further Afield: These activities are designed for even more movement, and may require more people, as you explore your relationship to the varied ecosystems of the natural world. ​​Get the entire series delivered to your inbox to read straight through and keep forever. ResourcesWe shared so many resources and links throughout this series, and we thought, being a parent and a teacher is hard enough! So we combined them all in this one page. 

Seriously, you're a hero. Parents and teachers have undeniably hard jobs, and we're grateful to you for raising the next generation. Thank you. Parents, give yourself a pat on the back. And remind us to do the same the next time we see you.Intro

Is it OK for my Kids to Go Hiking with Grandma? Article  https://boldlywent.kartra.com/page/6dF35

Mental Health, Outdoors, & COVID-19 
https://www.boldlywentadventures.com/bloglywent/mental-health-outdoors-covid-19

Children and COVID19: A Public Health Nurse Practitioner’s PerspectiveCDC Guidance on Social Distancing https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/prevent-getting-sick/social-distancing.htmlCDC Guidance on How to Prefent COVID19 Infection https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/prevent-getting-sick/prevention.html 
Educational outdoor activities to do with your children during this shutdown that are low social interaction, safe, and high engagement Bloom Where You Are Planted and try these educational activities right where you are.
 
Bloom Where You Are Planted

Sound map is an excellent activity for instilling greater awareness of one’s surroundings. https://www.sharingnature.com/sound-map.html
Gnome Home https://photos.app.goo.gl/DibfXTz6bHran4HC7

iNaturalist to connect with other naturalists. This app allows you to record your findings (what you find and where you find it) while out in nature and share them online, essentially creating a living and constantly evolving record of the species that have been spotted near you. https://www.inaturalist.org/
Leave No Trace https://lnt.org/

Develop a weather tracker: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1kKm4jGBfulNzTiVHKZ4MFFxVhV6SUH91/view?usp=sharing

Making your own Bioplastics: Polymers for the Planet
https://learn.teachingchannel.com/polymers-engineering-unit-boeing
 
eBird App https://ebird.org/pnw/news/impact-of-social-distancing-on-bird-activity

Bird study: https://www.kuow.org/stories/trapped-at-home-help-study-bird-life-amidst-social-distancing

PeakFinder App https://www.peakfinder.org/mobile/

Nature Mandalas https://www.sustainablelearning.com/resource/natural-mandalas

Map Making with Children Book https://www.heinemann.com/products/e00042.aspx
​
Draw a Planetary System https://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/education/schoolyard_ss/
 

Explore More by trying some of these outdoor educational activities during the COVID19 QuarantineExplore More
Sound map is an excellent activity for instilling greater awareness of one’s surroundings. https://www.sharingnature.com/sound-map.html
 
Meet a tree https://www.sharingnature.com/meet-a-tree.html

Iceland Tree Hugging https://www.icelandreview.com/nature-travel/forest-service-recommends-hugging-trees-while-you-cant-hug-others/

Goosechase https://www.goosechase.com/

iNaturalist to connect with other naturalists. This app allows you to record your findings (what you find and where you find it) while out in nature and share them online, essentially creating a living and constantly evolving record of the species that have been spotted near you. https://www.inaturalist.org/
Map Making with Children Book https://www.heinemann.com/products/e00042.aspx
Solar System https://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/education/schoolyard_ss/

Go Further Afield with educational activities that expand your bubble and taking you further away from home when it's allowed after quarantine restrictions are eased.Further Afield
Sound map is an excellent activity for instilling greater awareness of one’s surroundings.  https://www.sharingnature.com/sound-map.html]
 
Meet a tree https://www.sharingnature.com/meet-a-tree.html

Iceland Tree Hugging https://www.icelandreview.com/nature-travel/forest-service-recommends-hugging-trees-while-you-cant-hug-others/

Geocaching Adventure Labs App https://newsroom.geocaching.com/adventure-lab
​
Goosechase https://www.goosechase.com/

iNaturalist to connect with other naturalists. This app allows you to record your findings (what you find and where you find it) while out in nature and share them online, essentially creating a living and constantly evolving record of the species that have been spotted near you. https://www.inaturalist.org/

Map Making with Children Book https://www.heinemann.com/products/e00042.aspx

Leafsnap Developed by researchers from Columbia University, this app uses visual recognition software to identify plants based on photographs of their leaves. You can also do a leaf rubbing as shown in the photo below. Sandwich the leaves between two pieces of paper, and use a flat end or the long side of a crayon to make broad strokes to reveal the leaf texture. http://leafsnap.com/ 


It's fine to try some indoor activities too! This should keep 'em busy for a while.These aren’t outdoor activities, but…

Plan, dehydrate, and prepare your backcountry meals using National Outdoor Leadership (NOLS) ration ratios.  https://blog.nols.edu/2016/03/22/planning-a-camping-menu1.5 pounds per person per day (pppd) is good for hot days and warm nights. This is an excellent amount for trips with children or leisure days as it’s roughly 2500-3000 calories per day. 1.75-2.0 pounds pppd is great if you expect warm/cool days and nights or hiking with a full pack. Ideal for moderate to active days about 3000 to 3500 calories per day. 2.0-2.25 pounds is good for hiking and skiing with full packs in cool days and cold nights. This is roughly 3500-4000 calories per day. 
How to Listen to Podcasts https://www.boldlywentadventures.com/bloglywent/how-to-listen-to-podcasts

Episodes of the Boldly Went Podcast featuring stories shared by children includeDiscovery. Ep. 50Recent Bigfoot Sightings, Mountaineering & Missiles in Oahu Hawaii, Scuba Diving Bloopers, & Warped Tour. Ep. 56Miracles: Cho Oyu Mountain Climbing and hiking in Ecuador. Ep. 61Season 2 Highlights Part 1 Ep. 69Maritime Miracles. Ep. 83Things we do for family. Press Traverse FKT, cougar sighting, and Tietons with the family. Ep. 104Don’t Take Your Parents Unless...Ep.137 
Write and Tell Your Own Adventure Story https://www.boldlywentadventures.com/bloglywent/writing-your-adventure-story-and-the-day-i-decided-to-stay-inside-forever
 
Seattle Times Article https://www.seattletimes.com/life/the-best-virtual-and-socially-distant-field-trips-to-take-with-kids-as-coronavirus-closures-continue/?utm_source=referral&utm_medium=mobile-app&utm_campaign=ios
 
For Adults
Sharing Nature With Children Book https://www.sharingnature.com/sharing-nature.html
FindingNature.org https://www.findingnature.org/
​
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​Thanks for reading! We hope this was useful. 

​What else would you add? What kinds of activities do you and your family or students get up to that are near to you and low social interaction? Drop them in the comments! 

Follow Jessica Levine:
Website: www.greenlevine.wordpress.com 
Twitter: @msgreenlevine
Instagram: @msgreenlevine  and @112Collaboratory

The Dirtbag’s Guide to Outdoor Educational Activities with Children During COVID19 Quarantine & Isolation: Part 4 Further Afield

Photo by Kiana Bosman on UnsplashAbout This SeriesThis is part 3 of a 5-part series, "The Dirtbag’s Guide to Outdoor Educational Activities with Children During COVID19 Quarantine & Isolation" co-authored by expert teacher, Jessica Levine.

Read Part 1: Series Intro
Read Part 2: Bloom Where You are Planted here. 
Read Part 3: Further Afield

As a brief recap, there are 3 ways we're recommending to go adventuring during this quarantine: 
​Bloom where you're planted: Start at your feet, in a 1 meter square of space. These activities require very little movement, but lots of focused observations. Explore More: These activities are designed for more movement, and may have you going about your yard and neighborhood. This is what we're focusing on in today's post!In this post, we're talking going "Further Afield": These activities are designed for even more movement, and may require more people, as you explore your relationship to the varied ecosystems of the natural world. ​Get the entire series delivered to your inbox to read straight through and keep forever. Send us your email. ​​Activities List Taking You Further AfieldThese activities are designed for more movement than activities outlined in earlier posts, and may require more people, as you explore your relationship to the varied ecosystems of the natural world. ​

Listen and record nature sounds. Consider creating a sound map. Sound Map is an excellent activity for instilling greater awareness of one’s surroundings.Meet a tree with this excellent simple activity:  In fact, Iceland recommends hugging trees when you can’t hug others right now.Geocaching has always offered a large assortment of learning and adventuring. Specifically, in this no-touch, social distancing time, certain geocache types (webcam caches, earth caches, and virtual caches) require no physical objects be placed or touched. Simply use navigation for these location-based experiences. Check out the Adventure Lab app from Geocaching! Each Adventure, created by geocachers around the world will take you on mini tours of areas to points of interest. You can learn from buildings, signs, statues, and more. Great fun for all ages!Try a science scavenger hunt. Find one you like by searching the term in google then going to imaging and printing off your favorite for the day. Join a Goosechase, an online scavenger hunt game. Pick a color of the day, and as you explore #nearbynature, collect photos or samples of the range of hues for that color selection. Garnering materials to build a chicken coop. Otherwise, the build part is included in Bloom Where You Are Planted Section.Shop for or go in search of dandelions to harvest to make dandelion honey.Identify plants -- look for edibles (come on, not that kind) and 4 leaf clover. Use iNaturalist to help you identify all sorts of fauna. Identify trees - use a bingo card. Did you know you can always tell a dogwood tree by its bark? That’s a joke, but what about the bark of trees can be used to identify it. Do a bark rubbing--a large piece of paper is helpful, and you can even use a paper grocery sack opened up! If the tree has already leafed use Leafsnap to upload a photo. Try metal detecting if you can access a metal detector. What is the most common metal? Skip rocks in the creek. Build a stack of rocks on the banks. Look to artist Andy Goldsworthy for inspiration. Identify animal prints. Try casting or drawing them.Create field art. Consider using biodegradable paint and materials or natural materials. Build sandcastles at the beach, if you live nearby--if you have to drive it’s too far. Look for fish, tadpoles, and crawdads in the creek--bring along a light colored empty ice cube tray so that as you scoop critters you can further investigate them, and separate them in order to better observe and maybe ID these critters. Use binoculars to look in the mountains, out to the water, to see birds, and to teach about why spying on the neighbors is creepy. Use eBird, iNaturalist, or PeakFinder apps to help you learn more about what you see. Make plant presses out of cardboard. Use almost any sort of paper between layers and weigh down with books. Then create herbarium sheets with information about the specimen, date of collection and name of collector.​ Photo by olena ivanova on UnsplashCreate nature mandalas or Andy Goldsworthy inspired nature assemblages/sculptures with found items collected respectfully. Teach Leave No Trace principles.Grab a handful of crayons out of a box and go on a hunt to find the colors in nature. What color are new leaves? How do they compare to other leaves nearby? Build sandcastles at the beach, if you live nearby--if you have to drive it’s too far. Make a sound wall by suspending items from a rope or wire that make fun sounds when you strike them. For example old keys in a bunch, old tins, spoons, cups. What sound resonates the most? Which lasts the longest? Which is the highest pitch? Make a map by walking or biking. Identify the plants, the neighbors, and the businesses around your blocks. This great book, Map Making with Children--A Sense of Place, has some excellent ideas, including hiding a special coin or object, and then making a treasure map for someone else to find it which can be done even in the house! #trashtag--clean up a natural area near you. Post before and after pictures. ​
In the final installation of this series, we'll be collating and sharing all our resource links from this series. 
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​
What else would you add? What kinds of activities do you and your family or students get up to that are near to you and low social interaction? Drop them in the comments! ​​


Follow Jessica Levine:
Website: www.greenlevine.wordpress.com 
Twitter: @msgreenlevine
Instagram: @msgreenlevine  and @112Collaboratory

The Dirtbag’s Guide to Outdoor Educational Activities with Children During COVID19 Quarantine & Isolation: Part 3 Explore More

This is part 3 of the series, "The Dirtbag’s Guide to Outdoor Educational Activities with Children During COVID19 Quarantine & Isolation" co-authored by expert teacher, Jessica Levine.

Read Part 1: Series Intro
Read Part 2: Bloom Where You are Planted here.

As a brief recap, there are 3 ways we're recommending to go adventuring during this quarantine: 
​Bloom where you're planted: Start at your feet, in a 1 meter square of space. These activities require very little movement, but lots of focused observations. In this post, we'll be covering how to "Explore More:" These activities are designed for more movement, and may have you going about your yard and neighborhood. This is what we're focusing on in today's post!Further Afield: These activities are designed for even more movement, and may require more people, as you explore your relationship to the varied ecosystems of the natural world. ​Get the entire series delivered to your inbox to read straight through and keep forever. Send us your email. ​Explore MoreActivities in the "explore more category" are designed for more movement, and may have you going about your yard and neighborhood. 

Listen and record nature sounds. Consider creating a sound map. Sound Map is an excellent activity for instilling greater awareness of one’s surroundings.Make a sound wall by suspending items from a rope or wire that make fun sounds when you strike them. Ex) old keys in a bunch, old tins, spoons, cups. Microhike: “a microhike is a very short expedition guided by a string three to five feet long. The “hikers” comver the trail inch by inch on their bellies viewing such natural wonders such as a blade of grass bent by dewdrops. Because young children are particularly fond of tiny objects, their interest in the world of the miniature will amaze you.” You could use a magnifying glass, as you keep your eyes no higher than one foot above the ground. Meet a tree with this excellent simple activity. In fact, Iceland recommends hugging trees when you can’t hug others right now.Try a science scavenger hunt. Find one you like by searching the term in google then going to imaging and printing off your favorite for the day. Join a Goosechase, an online scavenger hunt game. Pick a color of the day, and as you explore #nearbynature, collect photos or samples of the range of hues for that color selection. Harvest dandelions to make dandelion honey. Identify plants -- look for edibles (come on, not that kind) and 4 leaf clover. Use iNaturalist to help you identify all sorts of flora. Identify animal prints. Try casting or drawing them.Create field art. Consider using biodegradable paint and materials or natural materials. ​​​Look for fish, tadpoles, and crawdads in the creek--bring along a light colored empty ice cube tray so that as you scoop critters you can further investigate them, and separate them in order to better observe and maybe ID these critters.Use binoculars to look in the mountains, out to the water, to see birds, and to teach about why spying on the neighbors is creepy. Use eBird, iNaturalist, or PeakFinder apps to help you learn more about what you see. Shoot a bowMake plant presses out of cardboard. Use almost any sort of paper between layers and weigh down with books. Then create herbarium sheets with information about the specimen, date of collection and name of collector. Create nature mandalas or Andy Goldsworthy inspired nature assemblages/sculptures with found items collected respectfully. Make a giant bird nest out of sticks and pretend to be birds. Or use the bird blind to better observe wildlife. Practice and teach leave no trace principles.Grab a handful of crayons out of a box and go on a hunt to find the colors in nature. What color are new leaves? How do they compare to other leaves nearby? Freeze natural items in a cup with a string, unmold it and hang near a window where you can watch it melt and change shape.Make a map of your neighborhood by walking or biking. Identify the plants, the neighbors, and the businesses around your blocks. This great book, Map Making with Children--A Sense of Place, has some excellent ideas, including hiding a special coin or object, and then making a treasure map for someone else to find it which can be done even in the house! ​
​
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​
What else would you add? What kinds of activities do you and your family or students get up to that are near to you and low social interaction? Drop them in the comments! ​​


Follow Jessica Levine:
Website: www.greenlevine.wordpress.com 
Twitter: @msgreenlevine
Instagram: @msgreenlevine  and @112Collaboratory

​

The Dirtbag’s Guide to Outdoor Educational Activities with Children During COVID19 Quarantine & Isolation: Part 2 Bloom Where You are Planted

This is part 2 of the series, "The Dirtbag’s Guide to Outdoor Educational Activities with Children During COVID19 Quarantine & Isolation" co-authored by expert teacher, Jessica Levine.

If you missed part 1, or just want to read it again for a refresher, visit here. As a brief recap, there are 3 ways we're recommending to go adventuring during this quarantine: 
​Bloom where you're planted: Start at your feet, in a 1 meter square of space. These activities require very little movement, but lots of focused observations. Explore More: These activities are designed for more movement, and may have you going about your yard and neighborhood. Further Afield: These activities are designed for even more movement, and may require more people, as you explore your relationship to the varied ecosystems of the natural world. ​Bloom where you are plantedBlooming where you are planted means finding outdoor educational activities and doing them that are right where you live. Here is a long list of fun and educational activities for you to dive into today! 
Sound map. Sitting quietly—listening to the soothing voices of nearby trees, birds, and rustling grasses—calms us and deepens our appreciation for the life around us. Sound Map is an excellent activity for instilling greater awareness of one’s surroundings.Microhike. “A microhike is a very short expedition guided by a string three to five feet long. The “hikers” comver the trail inch by inch on their bellies viewing such natural wonders such as a blade of grass bent by dewdrops. Because young children are particularly fond of tiny objects, their interest in the world of the miniature will amaze you.” You could use a magnifying glass, as you keep your eyes no higher than one foot above the ground. Pick a color of the day, and as you explore #nearbynature, collect photos or samples of the range of hues for that color selection. Build a chicken coop if you can get your hands on the right materials. Garnering materials may mean that you have to go further afield which is why it’s included in that section too. You probably already know this, but only add chickens if you're in an area that's zoned for it. (And it’s totally fine to decide to build something else if a chicken coop isn’t your thing!)Create an archaeological dig using paint brushes and anything else you think you can make of interest to your children. Apparently some parents have dinosaur skeletons in their possession that they use, and that really blows my mind! Whatever you use--old rotting chicken bones, broken pieces of sharp glass (just kidding, don't do that)-- place the item in the dirt and then talk about what the discoveries as though they have significance and are attached to a historical event or animal.  Identify plants -- look for edibles (come on, not that kind) and 4 leaf clovers. Use iNaturalist to help you identify all sorts of flora. Make homemade fire starters from dryer lint and a few common materials. Option 1 is using cardboard egg cartons and wax. Stuff the lint into each egg space, and cover with melted wax. When the wax is dry, cut the “eggs” apart, and you have 12 fire starters for your next adventure. Option 2 is to do this similar method swapping cardboard toilet tubes for egg cartons. Option 3 is to skip the cardboard and wax, and store bundles of lint soaked in old cooking oil in a glass jar ready to go for your next fire needs.  Practice making a campfire! I learned this skill when I was about 10 years old and there's a reason people call me the fire queen. No it has nothing to do with pyromania which I'm not into. Use a backyard fire pit. Are you a pyramid or log cabin method fire starter? Roast hot dogs and marshmallows on a stick, or cover potatoes in foil with a little oil and salt and pepper and toss the foil pouch into the coals. Make banana boats by slitting the banana skin, stuffing in a few chocolate chips, then sealing it up in foil and tossing it into the coals. Delicious! Identify animal prints. Try casting or drawing them.Create field art. Consider using biodegradable paint and materials or natural materials. Dig holes. What will you plant in there? How much water will fill it? How long will it take the water to drain in your soil type. Conduct a perc test: Now that you’ve dug some holes in your soil, pour into the hole a measured amount of water, start a stop-watch, and time exactly how long it takes for that water to Percolate Into the Earth, get it? Perc test! Try this test in a few places in your yard, or neighborhood. Compare! Make forts in the trees, or build houses for fairies. Look at this example of a gnome home and teach leave no trace principles. Use binoculars to look in the mountains, out to the water, to see birds, and to teach about why spying on the neighbors is creepy. Use eBird, iNaturalist, or PeakFinder apps to help you learn more about what you see. Care for your pets and learn more about raising animals - we understand this will be a commitment that extends well beyond the COVID19 quarantine period... we think... we hope?? Conduct a plastic audit. Then make your own bioplastics. Observe and compare plastic types. Most suitable for grades 4-12. Build or make a bird feeder by or simply roll a pinecone in peanut butter and bird seed. Build a bird bath. Observe and identify birds. Play bird bingo. Identify birds from their call. Download the Sibley's app or ebird app for help. Participate in a citizen science project observing the impacts of social distancing on bird activity * . Teach basic outdoor safety and build a basic first aid kit. Any school-age child can be responsible for carrying a simple first aid kit. Build it together and learn when those tools would be needed. Basic wound management, including cleaning pads and sticky bandages (like Band-aids) is simple, as cuts and scrapes are common for rugged outdoor children of all ages.  
Practice map reading: Try first with a knuckle mountain range: Make a fist, and set your hand on a table. Then, with your knuckles as the mountain peaks in the range, draw concentric circles following the contours. When you then open your hand, you’ll have a flat map of the 3D system. Open and close again and again to see the valleys, the ridges and the entire range. ​ Knuckle mountain range topo practice. Students draw contour lines on their knuckle mountain range, and concentric circles marking the elevation. When they flatten their hand, they have transferred the 3D profile to a map. Photo c/o Jessica C. LevinePlant a garden - Learn succession planting, companion planting or square foot gardening. Draw a plan for the garden bed using a scale model. This, like raising animals, requires a commitment, and also creates an opportunity for regular responsibility to nature as one learns to tend and care for plants and observe the interactions. Get micro. If you can get a microscope try looking up close at things that you find in nature. Pond water, leaves, pet fur, snake skin, seed pods. Declare it Three Phases of Water Day. Find water in all its forms: 1) Frozen 2) Liquid  3) Steam. Bonus for finding all of these outside. Obviously this is highly dependent on the current weather and your ability to move around which is limited during the COVID19 lockdown.Develop a weather tracker using a journal. Set up a squirt gun target practice courseUse binoculars to look in the mountains, out to the water, to see birds, and to teach about why spying on the neighbors is creepy. Use eBird, iNaturalist, or PeakFinder apps to help you learn more about what you see. ​​Make plant presses out of cardboard. Use almost any sort of paper between layers and weigh down with books. Then create herbarium sheets with information about the specimen, date of collection and name of collector. Photo c/o Jessica C. LevineCreate nature mandalas or Andy Goldsworthy inspired nature assemblages/sculptures with found items collected respectfully. Use this as an opportunity to teach Leave No Trace Principles and return your items where you found them when you’re finished.
Chalk out the solar system by drawing planetary orbits to scale. With 100 feet of space, and some chalk, you can mark off the planet position all the way to Pluto and let your child draw each planet in.  
Make a giant bird nest out of sticks and pretend to be birds. Or use the bird blind to better observe wildlife. Practice and teach leave no trace principles.
Grab a handful of crayons out of a box and go on a hunt to find the colors in nature. What color are new leaves? How do they compare to other leaves nearby? 
Change a flat tire on a bicycle--learn about how, tune up your cables and brakes, and learn about gearing to make your pedaling easier. Then go for a ride! 
Make a map of a nearby outdoor space. Check out this great book, Map Making with Children--A Sense of Place, for excellent ideas, including hiding a special coin or object, and then making a treasure map for someone else to find it which can be done even in the house! 
​ Follow Jessica Levine:
Website: www.greenlevine.wordpress.com 
Twitter: @msgreenlevine
Instagram: @msgreenlevine  and @112Collaboratory

In our next post we'll review more pages of activities in the "Explore More" category. Activities in this group are designed for more movement, and may have you going about your yard and neighborhood.  

​If you'd like to have the entire series delivered to your inbox, send us your email
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The Dirtbag’s Guide to Outdoor Educational Activities with Children During COVID19 Quarantine & Isolation: Part 1 Introduction

Before the major 2020 COVID19 pandemic quarantine went into effect, Boldly Went posted an update to the Coronavirus for Dirtbags book answering the question, Is it OK for my Kids to Go Hiking with their Grandma? That led to the receipt of many questions from parents asking us for tips and ideas about educational activities to do with children outdoors. As governments around the world got busy implementing complete shutdowns to stop the spread of COVID19, we got busy finding an answer to your question.

Full disclosure: Here at Boldly Went, we are not parents. We do not know the real struggles that you parents face. I (Angel Mathis) am a family nurse practitioner and Tim is a children's nurse with a specialty in mental health. Even though we're good at helping you and your children through physical and mental health disruptions, we are not skilled 1:1 caregivers or educators.  We do know quite a lot about outdoors, but when it comes to facilitating children's education in the outdoors, we are about as good as an electrician trying to solve a plumbing problem, and if I’m honest, that’s probably an overestimation of our abilities on this front. 

Saying that, another strength we have is the wider Boldly Went outdoor community. So we asked around and found a real expert who can help us answer your question in this guide! Meet Jessica C. Levine! ​

Jessica Levine is a National Board Certified Teacher and a recipient of the Amgen Award for Science Teaching Excellence and The Patsy Collins Award for Excellence in Environment, Education and Community. With a background in biology, chemistry and environmental studies Jessica is passionate about the environment and systems/interdisciplinary thinking and learning. As a naturalist, above all else, she is a place-based educator. Jessica has worked in classrooms with a wide range of grade levels and subjects--from preschool to high school; from photography to science. She has also worked with young people in a variety of outdoor educational and wilderness leadership settings from the deciduous hardwood forests of New England, the sagebrush high deserts and muddy rivers of the American Southwest, the glaciers and mountain meadows of the North Cascades, to the tundra and permafrost of the Canadian Arctic. For the last 15 years Jessica has taught 6th grade science in Seattle Public Schools. Ironically, while the COVID closure of schools has torn down the walls of a traditional classroom, it’s also thrown the doors wide open. Go outside. The environment is an incredible context for learning.
Photo by Frank McKenna, Unsplash

If a child is to keep alive his inborn sense of wonder, he needs the companionship of at least one adult who can share it, rediscovering with him the joy, excitement, and mystery of the world we live in.

​--Rachel Carson

Introduction to this seriesWhat you'll find in this multi-part guide is not Boldly Went original content. It's borrowed from our network and from writers and experts, including Jessica herself. I hope it's useful. I hope you stay sane! And if not, that's when you can really call on our expertise as clinicians to help you out! Here's a good article to start.Children and COVID19: A Public Health Nurse Practitioner’s PerspectiveSafety for children during COVID 19 means staying close to home, social distancing, avoiding interaction with other children and people who your children don’t live with. This includes cancelling and not scheduling any in-person play dates, group hangouts and group gathering locations such as playgrounds, pools, parks, schools, trampoline jumping places, birthday parties...you get the point. 

Thankfully, children are known not to be getting as severe infections as adults, which means children are experiencing a much lower rate of death than adults. However, I’m sure it won’t come as a surprise to anybody anywhere to learn that children are little disease vectors just waiting to come up in grandma’s face to give her cuddles and a deadly disease. 

I know...they do not do that on purpose! In all seriousness, I do want to clearly point out that children are getting sick or carrying the COVID19 virus just as much, or maybe more, than other age groups. So stemming COVID19 disease spread and progression means that it is essential to follow all social distancing advice outlined by the CDC and know how to take care of yourself, which does include wearing a cloth face mask for anyone who is old enough to leave it on, which brings us to tip #1 - a crafting project creating your own masks with things around the house. I promise, we’ll keep the other recommendations focused on outdoor activities.
​Education in the Outdoors: An Expert Teacher’s Perspective

Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted.

​--Albert Einstein

​Don’t let school get in the way of your education.

​--Mark Twain

Educational outdoor activities to do with your children during this shutdown that are low social interaction, safe, and high engagementGary Paul Nabhan and Stephen Trimble begin their influential book The Geography of Childhood: Why Children Need Wild Places claiming that many naturalists start their journey in any open space just beyond the backyard fence. It’s this sense of home and the subsequent heightened awareness of place that is key to developing future caretakers of this planet. Thus, we’ve organized these activities with increasing activity away from where you stand. As an added benefit to the environment, we’ve been asked to stay put. Sing the old REM song if you have to “Stand in the place that you live.” So bloom where you are planted; then explore some more; and then venture further afield, but not too far. 

Bloom where you're planted: Start at your feet, in a 1 meter square of space. These activities require very little movement, but lots of focused observations. Explore More: These activities are designed for more movement, and may have you going about your yard and neighborhood. Further Afield: These activities are designed for even more movement, and may require more people, as you explore your relationship to the varied ecosystems of the natural world. 

We have pages and pages (and pages) of tips that are are excited to share with you in the next few days' posts. 

Read Next Now
Follow Jessica Levine:
Website: www.greenlevine.wordpress.com 
Twitter: @msgreenlevine
Instagram: @msgreenlevine  and @112Collaboratory

​To receive future post updates and the entire series in a free E-Book, send us your email->

The Dirtbag’s Guide to Outdoor Educational Activities with Children During COVID19 Quarantine & Isolation

Before the major 2020 COVID19 pandemic quarantine went into effect, Boldly Went posted an update to the Coronavirus for Dirtbags book answering the question, Is it OK for my Kids to Go Hiking with their Grandma? That led to the receipt of many questions from parents asking us for tips and ideas about educational activities to do with children outdoors. As governments around the world got busy implementing complete shutdowns to stop the spread of COVID19, we got busy finding an answer to your question.

Full disclosure: Here at Boldly Went, we are not parents. We do not know the real struggles that you parents face. I (Angel Mathis) am a family nurse practitioner and Tim is a children's nurse with a specialty in mental health. Even though we're good at helping you and your children through physical and mental health disruptions, we are not skilled 1:1 caregivers or educators.  We do know quite a lot about outdoors, but when it comes to facilitating children's education in the outdoors, we are about as good as an electrician trying to solve a plumbing problem, and if I’m honest, that’s probably an overestimation of our abilities on this front. 

Saying that, another strength we have is the wider Boldly Went outdoor community. So we asked around and found a real expert who can help us answer your question in this guide! Meet Jessica C. Levine! ​

If a child is to keep alive his inborn sense of wonder, he needs the companionship of at least one adult who can share it, rediscovering with him the joy, excitement, and mystery of the world we live in.

​--Rachel Carson

IntroJessica Levine is a National Board Certified Teacher and a recipient of the Amgen Award for Science Teaching Excellence and The Patsy Collins Award for Excellence in Environment, Education and Community. With a background in biology, chemistry and environmental studies Jessica is passionate about the environment and systems/interdisciplinary thinking and learning. As a naturalist, above all else, she is a place-based educator. Jessica has worked in classrooms with a wide range of grade levels and subjects--from preschool to high school; from photography to science. She has also worked with young people in a variety of outdoor educational and wilderness leadership settings from the deciduous hardwood forests of New England, the sagebrush high deserts and muddy rivers of the American Southwest, the glaciers and mountain meadows of the North Cascades, to the tundra and permafrost of the Canadian Arctic. For the last 15 years Jessica has taught 6th grade science in Seattle Public Schools. Ironically, while the COVID closure of schools has torn down the walls of a traditional classroom, it’s also thrown the doors wide open. Go outside. The environment is an incredible context for learning.


What you'll find in this multi-part guide is not Boldly Went original content. It's borrowed from our network and from writers and experts, including Jessica herself. I hope it's useful. I hope you stay sane! And if not, that's when you can really call on our expertise as clinicians to help you out! Here's a good article to start.Children and COVID19: A Public Health Nurse Practitioner’s PerspectiveSafety for children during COVID 19 means staying close to home, social distancing, avoiding interaction with other children and people who your children don’t live with. This includes cancelling and not scheduling any in-person play dates, group hangouts and group gathering locations such as playgrounds, pools, parks, schools, trampoline jumping places, birthday parties...you get the point. 

Thankfully, children are known not to be getting as severe infections as adults, which means children are experiencing a much lower rate of death than adults. However, I’m sure it won’t come as a surprise to anybody anywhere to learn that children are little disease vectors just waiting to come up in grandma’s face to give her cuddles and a deadly disease. 

I know...they do not do that on purpose! In all seriousness, I do want to clearly point out that children are getting sick or carrying the COVID19 virus just as much, or maybe more, than other age groups. So stemming COVID19 disease spread and progression means that it is essential to follow all social distancing advice outlined by the CDC and know how to take care of yourself, which does include wearing a cloth face mask for anyone who is old enough to leave it on, which brings us to tip #1 - a crafting project creating your own masks with things around the house. I promise, we’ll keep the other recommendations focused on outdoor activities.
​Education in the Outdoors: An Expert Teacher’s Perspective

Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted.

​--Albert Einstein

​Don’t let school get in the way of your education.

​--Mark Twain

Educational outdoor activities to do with your children during this shutdown that are low social interaction, safe, and high engagementGary Paul Nabhan and Stephen Trimble begin their influential book The Geography of Childhood: Why Children Need Wild Places claiming that many naturalists start their journey in any open space just beyond the backyard fence. It’s this sense of home and the subsequent heightened awareness of place that is key to developing future caretakers of this planet. Thus, we’ve organized these activities with increasing activity away from where you stand. As an added benefit to the environment, we’ve been asked to stay put. Sing the old REM song if you have to “Stand in the place that you live.” So bloom where you are planted; then explore some more; and then venture further afield, but not too far. 

Bloom where you're planted: Start at your feet, in a 1 meter square of space. These activities require very little movement, but lots of focused observations. Explore More: These activities are designed for more movement, and may have you going about your yard and neighborhood. Further Afield: These activities are designed for even more movement, and may require more people, as you explore your relationship to the varied ecosystems of the natural world. 

We have pages and pages (and pages) of tips that are are excited to share with you in the next few days' posts. To receive future post updates and the entire series in a free E-Book, send us your email->

Follow Jessica Levine:
Website: www.greenlevine.wordpress.com 
Twitter : @msgreenlevine | Instagram: @msgreenlevine  and @112Collaboratory

Mental Health, Outdoors, & COVID-19

While it may feel like you’re hiding out from the apocalypse, in reality, no matter what happens, we’re not all going to die. Take a deep breath, follow the advice of public health officials, keep calm and give yourself some credit.

While it doesn’t always seem like it, what you’re doing is participating in the biggest mass mobilization of human cooperation and good will of any of our lifetimes. In the vast majority of cases, we’re collectively deciding to take a significant hit to prevent a crisis that wouldn’t be that bad for most of us, but would be terrible for a few of us. The reason millions of vulnerable people around the world will survive the next few months is because billions of the rest of us are doing what we can to prevent disease spread and keep society moving at the same time. I hope you can take pride in being a part of it. 

Having said that, now let’s acknowledge that for a lot of us life SUUUUUUUCKS right now. Most of us are sitting at home quietly stewing away wondering how long this all will last and how much we can take of this. I’m a crisis mental health worker - I know for lots of people this goes beyond a simple annoyance. For some, breaks in routine, increases in stress, and too much time alone with our uncertainties all adds up to a genuine crisis beyond what the disease itself hath wrought. 

That’s why this week we wanted to slip out of our adventure cardigans and into our health professional slippers to take a quick second and remind folks of the kinds of things you can do to keep yourself sane in the midst of self-isolation and uncertainty.

 In the short term, none of us need that much to survive - food, water, shelter, safety, warmth. That’s about it. But to hold it together in the long term, we all need the kind of things that we talked about in the last chapter of The Dirtbag’s Guide to Life - purpose, connection, a sense of your story, and a sense of transcendence.

All of that might sound kind of woo woo in a situation like this, but the point is (and you’ve probably already realized this yourself) you can’t just sit there all day. It’ll drive you bonkers and bring out the worst in you. Which is why we wanted to encourage you in the midst of this to do the types of things that will keep you sane while you’re self-isolating:

Take a minute to think about something you can do every day to help in a way that feels fulfilling. Whether that means using your professional skills in a new way to assist with the crisis, providing some material support for someone who’s out of a job, helping get food to people who are shut in, homeschooling your kids, or donating blood. Our context has changed for a bit, so it might take a bit to figure out what this means, but the world still needs your contributions. 
Take the opportunity to reach out every day. Some of you all are social media butterflies and keeping connections alive is no big deal. But some of us are terrible at texting and returning calls at baseline, and hate the mess that is social media. But now is the time to use electronic tools to their full potential. Don’t (just) argue about politics, get in touch with those people you like who you haven’t heard from in awhile.
Think about how all of this fits in to the bigger picture. Think about what positive changes this period of life might bring - what strengths you’re realizing you have that you might not have before, what things it’s helping you realize you value, and how it’s providing you perspective on what you need to be satisfied with life.
Find ways to make progress on goals that you care about. One of the biggest challenges for a lot of people right now is losing the sense that they’re doing something productive. But you can also take the opportunity to set some new pushup goals, or enroll in an intensive online course, plan a big adventure, get a new job certification, or break some time records on that neglected treadmill. Lock down is temporary - use the time to prepare yourself for what’s going to come after.

And, of course, stay active, and keep doing fun stuff, like listening to this week’s podcast.

Air Fives! (No touching!)

Some helpful links: 

1: Mental Health America’s resource links on managing during this pandemic: https://mhanational.org/covid19 

2: The phone numbers are NZ specific but New Zealand has put out some of the most helpful online resources for coping with Covid-19 related stress we’ve come across: https://www.mentalhealth.org.nz/get-help/covid-19/

3: For teens, from Unicef: https://www.unicef.org/coronavirus/how-teenagers-can-protect-their-mental-health-during-coronavirus-covid-19

4: Helping Children and Teens Cope with Anxiety about Covid-19 https://pulse.seattlechildrens.org/helping-children-and-teens-cope-with-anxiety-covid-19/

Is it ok to send my kids hiking with their grandma during the COVID-19 Pandemic?

When Angel Mathis isn’t instigating adventure through Boldly Went, she’s caring for patients as a nurse practitioner, and in recent weeks that’s meant she’s been fully consumed with helping people across Washington State navigate the coronavirus (COVID-19) crisis. We know that many of you are out there on lockdown, and, like us, you probably don’t do well being forced to stay inside for hours at a time, let alone weeks. Here we are sharing our expert advice on how to play outside safely when you’re self-isolating during a pandemic. (I know, I never imagined  I’d type those words either, but here we are!)

When Tim Mathis isn't instigating adventures, he's writing bios for Angel and calming people the eff down. Seriously. He's a psych nurse and he's really good at it. He's also a great writer, editor, friend, and husband.

Bonus for those of you with short attention spans! In case you don’t want to read the whole article, here are some quick TL;DR Pandemic Guidelines:Playing outside is great. Sun kills viruses (though we’re not sure how quickly in this case). The virus (except under very unusual circumstances) is not airborne. It’s droplet. That’s different. Read on for detailed info.  Indoor public spaces associated with playing outside are still cesspools, but even bigger cesspools - public restrooms, visitor centers, cafes, etc. Avoid them.  Crowded outdoor spaces like playgrounds are likely a bad idea - especially for kids or anyone who has to (gets to!) come into contact with them.  Shared equipment is also a bad idea - including ball sports, playgrounds, rented equipment, etc. The closer to the hands or face, the worse.   Go play outside to keep yourself sane, but still avoid the crowds and do activities that don’t involve interpersonal touching or shared equipment - like hiking, running, biking, walking, birding, gardening, or paddling.
Soooo….

You heard the news, your city’s shut down, your kids’ school is cancelled, you’re working from home or not at all, and the world is freaking out. You’re supposed to be keeping your distance from other humans (6 feet folks!), but most of your coping skills involve either going outside to play yourself, or sending your kids outside to play. 

This stuff is stressful. This is going to be rough.

Well, we here at Boldly Went have at least a little bit of good news: social distancing responsibly doesn’t mean staying inside - though you should follow some basic guidelines.

How can I be sure I’m not spreading disease around? 

Read more by selecting your preferred option below. Download Free E-Book with this complete article and all COVID 19 Content No, thanks, take me to this full blog post